Tt ' Carrying 
of ,u Ghost 


NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD 












































































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THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 

A BOOK OF VERSE 


NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD 






















THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


A BOOK OF VERSE 


BY 

NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD 


it 


* 


BOSTON: 

B. J. BRIMMER COMPANY 
1923 



Copyright 1923 

B. J. BRIMMER COMPANY 





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 


AMBROSE PRESS, INC. 
Norwood, Mass. 



*IVl. % 0 


,rt 


X 



TO 

Louise Townsend Nicholl 
















* 





















ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


jy/JOST of the poems in this volume have been published 
in various periodicals. For courteous permission 
to reprint them, the author expresses his acknowledgment 
to Poetry : A Magazine of Verse , The Midland , The 
Measure , The Nation , The New Republic , The Smart Set , 
Contemporary Verse , The Pagan , The Wave , and The Chi¬ 
cago Tribune ; also to Dr. William Stanley Braithwaite and 
Messrs. Small, Maynard & Company for the privilege 
of reprinting Comrades and Lovers f Rest Not , which first 
appeared in The Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1919. 
The title poem, The Carrying of the Ghost , was awarded 
the prize of $100 in the poetry contest conducted by the 
Kansas Authors’ Club in 1920. Song was awarded the 
Betty Earle Lyric Prize in 1923. 



CONTENTS 


The Carrying of the Ghost .... 1 

In the Key of Blue.12 

A Field of Flax 
A Voice 
Hands 

Improvisation.16 

Rainbow Days.18 

A. Leon Skipwith Takes His Soul to Church . 20 

The House Static.23 

Trees.24 

The Mathematician.28 

The Sweeper.29 

My Furrow.30 

Song.32 

Around You Music.33 

Fragrance is Yours.34 

Lacelike Loves of Childhood . . . .35 

Carver of the Night.36 

Unfulfillment. 37 

You and Me.38 

Companionship.39 











CONTENTS 


Surfeit .... 

. 



. 40 

Lake .... 




. 41 

Impotence 




. 42 

Portrait of a Woman . 




. 43 

Disseverance . 




. 44 

Branches .... 




. 45 

To a Cedar on a Windy Hill 



. 46 

Creed .... 




. 47 

Criticism .... 




. 48 

Glories .... 




. 49 

Nocturne Fantastique . 




. 52 

On the Great Plains . 




. 53 

Tumbleweeds . 




. 54 

In the Shoe-shine Parlor 




. 55 

In Vermont 




. 56 

Decouverte 




. 57 

Hyacinths 




. 59 

Music .... 




. 60 

Humoresque . 




. 61 

The Photograph 




. 62 

The Afternoon Party . 




. 64 

Error .... 




. 65 

Comrades and Lovers, Rest Not 



. 66 


















THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


A MES-QUA-KIE CEREMONY 

(The Friends and the Mourners chant responsively) 

Let the ghost of the brave be carried away. 
Let the ghost of the brave be carried away. 
Mourners, look up. 

Fasters, look up. 

You who have shed your blood, look up. 

You whose tears were not enough to shed, 
Look up, look up. 

We cannot look up. 

We cannot look up. 


1 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


A moon ago died the dutiful son. 

A moon ago died the faithful husband. 

A moon ago died the brave, the friend. 

His ghost is cold. 

His ghost is naked. 

Let the ghost of the brave be carried away. 
Mourners, look up. 

Fasters, look up. 

We cannot look up. 

We cannot look up. 

Mourners, fasters, 

Where is his ghost ? 

In the Happy Hunting Ground 
Pursues he the game ? 


2 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


Eights he in company with ancient warriors ? 
Fights he in company with Hot Hand ? 

Fights he in company with Cold Hand ? 

Fights he with the ancient brave Mes-qua-kies ? 
Mourners, fasters. 

Where is his ghost ? 

Is he in the Happy Hunting Ground ? 

Is he in the Happy Hunting Ground ? 

Ai, ai! At, at! At, at! 

At, at! At, ai! Ai, ai! 

Why is he not in the Happy Hunting Ground ? 
Why is he not in the Happy Hunting Ground ? 
Mourners, fasters, 

Have you not sent him ? 


3 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


Mourners and fasters, 

Befriend him, befriend him. 

Mourners and fasters, 

Befriend his ghost. 

Why is he not in the Happy Hunting Ground ? 
Mourners, and fasters, why does his ghost tarry ? 
Why is it thin and cold and naked ? 

He is so loved 
We cannot send him. 

He is so loved 
We cannot let him go. 

Ax, an! Ai , an! At , an! 

He stands outside 

The circle of the ghost-fire. 


4 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 

He stands outside 
In the cold darkness. 

His soul is naked, 

He is cold, outside 
In the cold darkness. 

He fears the demons 
In the cold darkness, 

Lest they eat his soul 
In the cold darkness. 

Mourners and fasters, 

Befriend his ghost. 

He is son : we cannot send him. 

He is brother : we cannot send him. 
He is husband : we cannot send him. 


5 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


He is friend : we cannot send him. 
We cannot send him. 

We cannot let him go. 

y 

If we send him , 

He comes back no more. 

If he goes , 

He comes back no more. 


He is lonely and friendless. 
He has no companions. 

He sees his friends 
By the smoky ghost-fire, 

But they cannot see him. 

He hears their voices 
Praise him by the ghost-fire. 


6 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


But they cannot hear him 
When he replies. 

Thin is his voice : 

They cannot hear it. 

Send him to the Happy Hunting Ground, 
Where dwell his ancestors. 

Send him to the Happy Hunting Ground, 
Where dwell Hot Hand and Cold Hand. 

Long is the ghost-road : 

No one returns hy it. 

Long is the ghost-road : 

He comes hack no more. 

Long is the ghost-road : no one returns by it. 
Long is the ghost-road : but all go over it. 


7 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


Long is the ghost-road : you will go over it. 
You will go over it, if you will send him. 

Long is the ghost-road : 

No one returns by it. 

Long is the ghost-road : 

He comes back no more. 


He wanders in the cold, beyond the ghost-fire. 
He picks up crumbs like a wolf in the cold. 

He has no horse : he can hunt no game. 

Long is the ghost-road, 

But all go over it. 

Long is the ghost-road. 

You will go over it. 


8 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


You will go over it 
If you will send him. 

Yes , we will send him , 

For we shall follow him. 

Yes , we will send him , 

For we sMZ noZ Zoee him. 

Yes , we wZZZ send /iim ; 

IFe sMZ all follow after him. 

We shall all follow after him , 
JFiee, grood, loving. 

Yes , we will send him : 

Make ready the horse , 

The new clothes , the feast. 

They will send him, they will send him, 


9 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


The mourners will send him, 

Make ready the horse, the new clothes, the feast. 
They will send him, 

They will send him, 

And they will follow after. 

Call the ghost carriers, 

Call the ghost carriers. 

Bring no more wood to the smoky ghost-fire : 

The ghost goes on the long ghost-road. 

Bring no more food to the smoky ghost-fire : 

The ghost goes on the long ghost-road. 

Let the men who sit by the smoky ghost-fire 
No more praise him that he may hear. 

Let the men who sit by the smoky ghost-fire 


10 


THE CARRYING OF THE GHOST 


Rise up now and help to make ready, 
Rise up and make ready. 

Make ready, 

Make ready. 

Rise up and make ready : 

The ghost goes on the long ghost-road. 


11 


IN THE KEY OF BLUE 


A Field of Flax 

I have a field of flax, blue-blooming. 
The fiber is tense and tough. 

From it may God make blue garments 
For the clear joy of Him, 

For the grave glory of Him. 

Like that blue there is no other — 
Sturdy, caressing, unbearably perfect, 
Not hiding, 

Nor revealing, 

Merely being. 

It is not one blue, 


n 


IN THE KEY OF BLUE 


But three : 

One quite somber. 

One quite glad. 

One quite full of wistfulness. 

Yet they agree in one. 

You, beloved, 

You are a field of flax, blue-blooming. 
The fiber is tense and tough. 

From it may God make blue garments 
For the clear joy of Him, 

For the grave glory of Him. 

A Voice 

It is too dark to see 

The hard, white, poplar-bordered road 


13 


IN THE KEY OF BLUE 


Or the soft warm lake beyond one poplar row. 
But your voice comes from the dark, and I see 
A dull-blue woven thing, 

Full of the smell of blue roses 
Blown across a misty salt sea. 


Hands 

Moulder of Visions, 

I will take your two hands, 

Browned, strong, tender, creative, 

One of them wearing a blue-and-silver ring. 
And I will make them into music — 

A symphony of blue-and-silver nights 
And stark red days on brown sands 
And lilac-lighted sunsets, 


14 


IN THE KEY OF BLUE 


And the hands of God the Artist, 

Browned, strong, tender, creative, 

One of them wearing a blue-and-silver ring — 
Holding, 

Shaping, 

Moulding intricately 
Tough, pliant clay. 


15 


IMPROVISATION 


O 

fragilely conceived 
lady. . . . 

O delicate green and wistaria stillnesses 
laid lengthwise 
on silver-tipped olive 
ripples. . . . 

Yellow light 

rests quiescent, caressing, 
on glazed lavender waves. 

Ah ! manifold stately luster. . . . 

Ah ! wind of apricot blossoms 


16 


IMPROVISATION 


and lifting up of fringed banners 
in ultimate wistful procession. 

O 

fragilely conceived 
lady, 

lay your finger tips 
softly 

on God’s bosom. 

He will like to be reminded 
of apricot blossoms. 


17 


RAINBOW DAYS 


(Composition for a lute of two strings) 
Rainbow days ? 

Rainbow days ? 

Sue, 

What are rainbow days ? 

Sue, 

Do your eyes reflect 
Rainbow days ? 

Are there always — 

Or nearly always — 

Rainbow days to reflect ? 

Always rainbow days or 
Solemn stars ? 


18 


RAINBOW DAYS 


Do they ? 

Are there ? 

Do they ? 

Are there ? 

Sue, 

Always, 

Sue, 

Or nearly always 

(But sometimes solemn stars) 

Rainbow days. 


19 


A. LEON SKIP WITH TAKES HIS SOUL TO CHURCH 

This is a 

O Boris Anisfeld 
this is a meritorious 
unthinkable 
of unthinkables. 

Parade : 

Parade : 

Parade. 

Red plush seats 
and red-carpeted aisles. 

(There is a hotel in Vienna with red-carpeted cor¬ 
ridors. 


20 


A. LEON SKIPWITH TAKES HIS SOUL TO CHURCH 


She lay on the 
red plush sofa 
in a blue striped gown. 

0 nuit de chine . . . 

O Boris Anisfeld. . . . 
firm legs and 
steps backward 

yielding on red crunching carpet.) 
This is the procession 
of a god-knows-what-it-is. 

Heads on shoulders 
face the wrong way 
on the crunching carpet. 

This is a somnolent meritorious 
of all the meritorious. 


n 


A. LEON SKIPWITH TAKES HIS SOUL TO CHURCH 
I slept 

beside blue stripes 
of the organ. 

O understanding heart, 
o light at eventide, 
o all the restraining dull relics, 
come down the red corridor 
lie on the red plush sofa 
in the aisle. 

Yesterday. 

Now meritorious red plush and 

an answer to 

Did I ask a question ? 


did I ? 


THE HOUSE STATIC 
The house static says : 

In ancient exquisite unveilings 
(Speak now no uneager word) 
archaic my mind 
revels quiescently, 
a cat slithering insipidly 
among intense 

disarranged Venetian potteries — 

And do you like the flowered wall paper, 
do you like it, 

Madame Inquiline ? 


23 


TREES 


The Catalpa 

Pink-sprinkled summer twilight 
And soft brown velvet 
Of a violin. 


Elms 

Planted by the conventional, 

Yet not conventional, 

Growing in calm disregard 
Of the binders of beauty and culture. 
New England, you have not forgotten us, 
But we have forgotten you. 


24 


TREES 


The Apple Tree 
Dance, ma petite cherie i 
Isn’t it spring ? 

And spring doesn’t last till tomorrow, 
Ma petite cherie. 


Pines 

The slow measure of the chanted war song. . . . 

The storm cloud, dull throbbing black against the 
sky. . . . 

The lover constant though unloved. 

Poplars 

Statuesque cold-eyed women 
In smooth, caress-inviting green silk 
En promenade. 


25 


TREES 


The Oak 

Yes, William Morris, 

Here is your heart 
In a tree, 

Where you would have it. 

Yes, it still lives ; 

Every oak is a memory of you. 

Willows 

Coquettes tinkle ukeleles 
Fatuously, 

Droopingly 

The exertion tires them — poor dears 

The Ginkgo 
Heavy Chinese sirup, 

Lucent, cloying, 


26 


TREES 


Drunk on a tiny blue table 
To the tiny, lotus-scented tinkle 
Of a temple bell. 

The Blue Spruce 
Faultlessly carven jade 
Is no more faultless than you are, 
Little tree. 

But I love you, 

Little tree, 

In spite of your faultlessness. 


27 


THE MATHEMATICIAN 


Stranger alike to traffic’s clamor crude 
And to joy’s throbbing, intricate design. 

He stands serene. A formula, a line, 

With changeless beauty is by him endued. 

Striver for truth’s perfection, no light mood 
May move him. Differential, axiom, sign, 

Bring to him glimpses of the far divine, 

Marking the boundaries of finitude. 

By Euclid’s theorems cramped, he seeks new spheres, 
And walks in high, far ways forever free, 

Toils with awed vision through the ordered years, 
Till, from the all-but-handled harmony, 

In some grave problem Deity appears, 

And in a graph he finds Eternity. 


28 


THE SWEEPER 


I swept time forth across the threshold 
Of my room. 

It was grey, wet, rough, and heavy 
On my yellow broom. 

Like sand left by the tide, I said. 

The tide floods sand slowly, curvingly 
Back once more. 

Perhaps tomorrow time will be flooded back 
Upon my floor. 

I will thrust fast the bolts. 

And stuff the crevices with rags, 

Lest time creep in 
Beneath my door. 


MY FURROW 


Plow a straight furrow, 

Said the husbandman, 

Said the schoolmaster, 

Said the priest. 

Had I plowed a straight furrow, 

I had reached a white house, 

I had sat down to eat and drink, 

I had stayed long to rest me. 

Yes, I think I should have died in the white cottage. 

But my furrow has touched a stream bank, 

With a white glistening naiad upon it. 


30 


MY FURROW 


It has crossed a yellow-brown road 
With wine-dark grapes by the side of it. 
It has skirted the base of a mountain 
More lovely than Fujiyama. 

I am still plowing my furrow. 

I have come to no end of it, 

And maybe shall come to none ever. 

In my crooked furrow, 

I meet the husbandman, 

I meet the schoolmaster, 

I meet the priest. 

Still they say, 

Plow a straight furrow. 

Let me never plow a straight furrow. 


31 


SONG 


These are the words of the wind : 
Over your white body shall pass 
Whorls of water, whorls of light, 
Of the luster of blown glass. 
These are the words of the wind. 

You are beloved of the silence 
And the grey still rain. 

Once the sun loved you utterly. 
And shall love you again. 

These are the words of the wind : 
Over your white body shall pass 
Whorls of water, whorls of light. 
Of the luster of blown glass. 
These are the words of the wind. 


32 


AROUND YOU MUSIC 


Around you music flows like quiet wind, 

Blowing the tendrils of your sun-loved hair. 

And casting colors painters fain would find, 

Upon your face so softly radiant there. 

About your head, boy-beautiful, there plays 
Gregorian music from a distant choir. 

Then, in the midst of solemn blues and greys, 
Comes in a Palestrina cloud of fire, 

And now from far, a crashing Wagner note, 
Muted to shadows on a lake of glass. 

As Debussy speaks where the moonbeams float 
In silver-cadenced rhythm — float and pass. 
Builded through all past times since music’s birth, 
Timeless your beauty is as music’s worth. 


33 


FRAGRANCE IS YOURS 


Fragrance is yours, as honey is the bee’s : 

This is the symbol — and the literal word. 

A perfumed glamor upon star-lit seas, 

Where from infinity the waves have heard 
Unearthly voices ; and a quiet room, 

Furnished with pictures, books, and pert day-bed, 
Are woven on your aromatic loom 
To make a tapestry without a thread. 

You have sipped light from every evening star, 
You have heard odors stealing from the flute 
And mingled them with gold and cinnabar, 

Yet casually you say, “No absolute 
Is this I’ve found, but just a pleasant play 
To whisk away the moments of today.” 


34 


LACELIKE LOVES OF CHILDHOOD 


Lacelike loves of childhood, 

Thin, white, unglowing, 

Back they come to trouble us 
Who love the fire and its burning. 

They come in sharp angles 
Seen through windy mists. 

Lacelike loves of childhood, 

Unsought, from far returning — 

A copy-book and a blue ribbon, 

Starched white muslin and little scared eyes — 
Back they come to trouble us. 


35 


CARVER OF THE NIGHT 

Cleave the night, 

O most beautiful, 

with the sword of your great loveliness. 

Make through the carven moonlight 
a way for the ivory procession. 

Who is there 

that can know your loveliness, 

O carver of the night, 

O leader of the ivory procession ? 


36 


UNFULFILLMENT 

On the dark water. 

The two gleams of moonlight — 
How they quiver in their love ! 
Yet, seeking forever, 

Never can they embrace. 


37 


YOU AND ME 

When I hear your sharp sudden “ Hello,” 

I think of a box suddenly sprung open 

And you popping up 

In yellow hair 

And bright green smock 

To greet me — 

Me a child with ecstatic fists 
And you a doll-in-the box. 


38 


COMPANIONSHIP 

In the intertwirling smoke of our cigarettes 
Is a caressing sense of intricate congruity. 

There is sea-blue in this quiet place, 

And infinite crisp echoes of music, 

Bound together with cords of uttermost fragility. 


39 


SURFEIT 

I am saturated with you, 
like a sponge 

plunged in attar of damask roses. 


40 


LAKE 

You are a broad white lake, 

Silent. 

On your surface people launch their sun-warmed souls. 
Reflected in you, they see themselves 
Tall, profound, mystical. 


41 


IMPOTENCE 
While you lived, 

I could make you neither glad nor unhappy. 
Now you are dead, 

I can neither lull nor awaken you. 

Always I am impotent. 


42 


PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN 

Golden light singing 
Quivers on white sandalwood. 
Flutelike fragrance 
Unknowable 
Ascends spirally 

With uprising, downfalling music 
Of bells 
In caverns. 


43 


DISSEVERANCE 

I took a piece of life between my thumb and finger, 
Thinking to break it in two brittlely, 

Like a dry, snapping twig, 

But it tore jaggedly, wretchedly, 

Like a soggy proof just pulled from the press. 


44 


BRANCHES 

Pierre Gris, 

When an old man, 

Saw winter branches brown, grey, dulled silver. 

These, he said, are the no longer green 
Hopes of my youth. 

They seem to interlace. 

But I remember that that is 
Illusion. 


45 


TO A CEDAR ON A WINDY HILL 

O tall New Englander, 
why the ungirt garment 
of Japan ? 


46 


CREED 

Not leaves burned shapeless, not leaves sere lying, 
But the green, green bough : 

Not love forgotten, nor love remembered, 

But love now. 


47 


CRITICISM 

The picture has four notes, 

to be sounded 

on timbrel, 

rebec, 

tabret, 

lute. 

But no one sounded them 
when the picture and I were alive. 
Now I have forgotten 
what they are. 


48 


GLORIES 


Through the half open door, 

Over the grey sidewalk, 

In front of the many-domed Russian Cathedral — 
Alien of aliens, here in the Occident — 

Sweeps music, 

Bitter, plaintive, 

Yearning, turbulent, 

Splashing purple, red, blue, gold, 

Over the grey sidewalk : 

Varicolored glory of the East 
On the grey glory of the West. 

Through the half open door, 

Over the grey sidewalk. 


49 


GLORIES 


Drifts incense smoke, 

Curling in lavender spirals, 

Now soft, now heavy, 

Scented with a far, foreign odor. 
Mingled with hesitating lilac fragrance 
From the bush on the green parking : 
Mystic glory of the East 
With the simple glory of the West. 


Through the door, opened wide. 

On to the grey sidewalk, 

Pour the worshippers —> 

Aliens of aliens, here in the Occident — 
With far-looking eyes. 

With far-seeking faces, 


50 


GLORIES 


With far-born turbulent tongues, 
Jostling the kindly, contented, practical, 
Conventional-voiced passers-by : 
Tomorrow’s glory of the East, 

Jostling today’s glory of the West. 


51 


NOCTURNE FANTASTIQUE 


Such grotesquerie were unpermitted 

Save in vermillion cities of my dreams— 

Quavering witch voices misting querulously 
Down desolate valleys of dry streams. 

I will arise and shout myself a warning 

Never to walk in sea-covered cities again. . . . 

Yet no, I will not, for a sure voice calls me 

In the sound of reapers reaping long-dead grain. 

There is obedience in the wet sand between my fingers 
And even in the waves recalcitrant. . . . 

Shall wind flowers bloom in the sea-covered cities. 
While dreams change stodgily to adamant? 


52 


ON THE GREAT PLAINS 


Green and white mountains, 

Hard grey sand, 

And the gravely passionate sea — 
These have forgotten me. 

In the light of the petulant sun 
The great iron roller of the wheat field 
Crushes my soul, 

Makes it a dirty, red-brown powder — 
A stifling mulch 
Against hot joy, 

Against sweating grief. 


53 


TUMBLEWEEDS 

In the wind 
The tumbleweeds are 
Corpulent village mayors, 
Welcoming distinguished guests 
On the railway station platform. 


54 


IN THE SHOE-SHINE PARLOR 

The Greek lad 

In the shoe-shine parlor, 

Has a liturgy of shoe-shining : 

So many taps of the hand on the leather, 

So many snaps of the polishing cloth. 

So many crackles with a bit of tin in his hand, 

And under his breath intoned foreign words. 

The words ? Those of the server at the Divine Liturgy 
In the Church of St. James in Nauplia, 

Repeated in the shoe-shine parlor. 


55 


IN VERMONT 


I believe the phoenix will die 
Mysteriously, and rise again 
On the shore of Memphremagog. 

The gnarled old grower of apples told me so, 
Who has lived in north Vermont 
Since no one there can remember. 

(I think he and the phoenix 
Rose from the same grey ashes, 

And soon they both will be ashes again. 

I should like to see them rise once more, 
Especially my grower of apples.) 


56 


DfiCOUVERTE 


For seven years — or maybe eight — 
I knew your searching face 
And the way a pale green smock 
Hung in undulance, sea-suggesting, 
About your firm, uncorseted hips. 
Also I knew your hard blue paintings 
With their yellow lantern suns 
And cold melodious figures. 

But you I did not know 
Till at a table, 

Black-and-gold enameled, 

In a little cafe 

You lighted a cigarette 


57 


D^COUYERTE 


And said to me quietly, 

“ My friend, 

I wish that God would let me be 
A thin grey wisp of smoke.” 


58 


HYACINTHS 


China-blue hyacinths. 

You are back again. 

Straight and almost stately, 

Colored from dulled spring sky, 

You are as honest as God, my china-blue flowers. 
Your sisters the orchids are exotically subtle, 
And your sisters the roses are worldly wise. 
Primroses, poets say truly, are modest — 

But how I hate shy unctuous modesty ! 

Daisies I love, and daffodils. 

And the quiet soft soothing of deep blue squills. 
But if I were to be a flower — 

Which God knows I could not be — 

I should choose, I think, to be you, 

O hyacinths china-blue. 


59 


MUSIC 

I 

I do not applaud music : 

I applaud my own thoughts, 
Listening to music. 

II 

Were your spirit music, 

Could I play the sonata ? 

Or, after all, would it be a sonata 
Or merely an ariette ? 


60 


HUMORESQUE 


When Arthur’s slender lavender wife died in bearing a 
child, 

He wept decorously, 

Bore himself punctiliously in the ritual of the requiem, 
Gave the courteous young priest a gold coin, 

Then went home 

And composed, with the aid of a riming dictionary, 

A Ballade of Sorrow 
And a rondel about death 
In the manner of Henley. 


61 


THE PHOTOGRAPH 


(A page from the diary of Eloise Grayson, afterward Mrs. 
Frank Leicester) 

I have given you my photograph, though I despise you. 
You asked for it plausibly, with a certain proper humility, 
And so I could give it to you 
With no loss of self-respect. 

I know that you will put it in your room, miscalled by you 
your study. 

With the other photographs that you have, 

And that you will talk ribaldly about it, — 

About arms and legs and subjects that I cannot modestly 
think of. 


62 


THE PHOTOGRAPH 


Frank will drop into your room, 

And my photograph — 

Cartier did a stunning piece of work on it — 

Will be all that he will see. 

Nothing you can say will count. 

He will ever after associate me with that photograph, 
Which is not myself. 

And by and by he will have me, 

Who am not my photograph. 

And you still will have my photograph, 

Which is not myself. 

We shall all be quite satisfied — 

Except, perhaps, Frank. I wonder. . . . 


63 


THE AFTERNOON PARTY 
Limp, pale-green questions ; 

Flounced, lace-trimmed, succory-tinted asseverations 
Scarlet exclamations, turning magenta ; 

Lavender and maize-yellow compliments, 

Perfumed by violet-scented cigarettes. 


64 


ERROR 

O plum-blossom lady, 
the cherries 

cast their bloom on your shoulders. 
Can it be 

that neither they nor God 
realizes the ineptitude ? 


65 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 
For Walt Whitman, 1919 

Oh, you genteel, conventional, uncourageous, 

Bank presidents, suave, and your anaemic women, 

Professional Y. M. C. A. secretaries and directors of 
boards of welfare, 

Holders of doctorates from Leipzig and your conservative, 
purposeless students. 

Village newspaper men, telling as your own what your 
party central committees have told you, 

Reactionary government officials, pretending to be efficient 
in the public service, 

Blustering Western politicians, ignorant of history, blun¬ 
derers in logic, opponents of free speech, of even- 
handed justice, of world service by the nation, 


66 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


Impassive ridiculous women, facing neither truth nor 
emotion, taking refuge in ponderous, superstitious 
platitudes, 

All you “ never-enders,” who regretted the early close of 
the war and sneered at the cheering over the 
armistice. 

You who tried to cover up the wartime views of Lowell 
when you unctuously celebrated his centenary. 

And you who paid sixty dollars for a set of Walt Whitman’s 
works and have not opened it except to paste in your 
bookplate with its fatuous Latin motto — 

All you conventional illiberals, evaders of fact and de¬ 
cision, distrustful of others, distrustful of yourselves, 
You will praise Walt Whitman this month because it is 
fashionable to observe his centenary. 


67 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


It is well : you are better satisfied that you do not know 
him. 

For do you think Walt Whitman the egotist, the uncon¬ 
ventional, the liberal, the sincere, the frank, the 
healthy, the free, the light-hearted, the heroic, 

The glad, the rough, the tender, the democrat, the 
American, the world-citizen, the friend of the 
worker, 

Poet of the body, poet of the soul, poet of every dauntless 
rebel, 

Would want to associate with you, or do you think you 
would want to associate with him ? 

What do you care for America, real America, for de¬ 
mocracy, and for the name of America and the name 
of democracy 


68 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


In England, France, Jugo-Slavia, Russia, Mexico, Argen¬ 
tina, Poland, Brazil, Czecho-Slovakia, Belgium, the 
Ukraine, Japan, Liberia, China, Italy, New Zealand ? 

You would have America secede from the world — self- 
cultured, sufficient, 

You would make her an old maid, hopeless, childless, pitied 
and despised. 

You would destroy democracy by establishing an es¬ 
pionage, a censorship of life and art and opinion. 

And this month you will yawp the praises of Whitman, 

You who have met Whitman on Broadway, in Camden, in 
Lawrence, in the mines of Arizona, and on the prairies 
of North Dakota. 

Yes, you have met him and have not recognized him ; 

You have met him and hated and scorned him. 


69 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


Afoot and light-hearted, Walt Whitman still is traveling 
the open road, 

And the long brown path is still before him. 

He sat by the bedsides of dying boys in the hospitals of 
Europe. 

He strode past the White House in Washington as another 
President looked out and exclaimed, “ Well, he looks 
like a man ! ” 

He marched with the Russian hosts that overthrew the 
Czar in that silent revolution, 

He sat in the assembly room with the striking telephone 
operators of Massachusetts, 

He paces the quays and the streets of Paris the brother 
and friend of all men. 

He longs with anxious longing for realization of his vision : 


70 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


The Asiatic and the African hand in hand — the European 
and American hand in hand. 

And you, carpenters, farmers, deckhands, weavers, 
printers, bridge builders, pickers of cotton in the South 
and harvesters of wheat in the North, 

Sheep herders, brakemen, brick masons, telephone opera¬ 
tors, shop girls, wheel tappers, waiters, hired girls, 
workers in mines, mail carriers, whitewings, laborers 
skilled and unskilled, 

Yes, and you lawyers, doctors, writers, engineers, manu¬ 
facturers, shop-keepers. 

All of you who are fair and honest and seekers after justice 
for all men, 

Walt Whitman will return to lead you on the open road of 
honesty, frankness, democracy. 


71 


COMRADES AND LOVERS, REST NOT 


(Most of you never owned a volume of Walt Whitman, 
but he is your companion and you are his companions, 
beloved, inseparable.) 

You are his great companions, you are his swift and ma¬ 
jestic men, you are his greatest women. 

You and he will travel together the long brown path, the 
grand road of the universe, 

Seeking only perfect democracy, seeking only the glory 
of America as she serves the universe. 

Comrades and lovers. 

Comrades and lovers, 

Comrades and lovers, 

Rest not. 


72 

















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